


what i stand for

by deduce_me



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, M/M, Self harm sort of, Some death stuff, so yeah pretty cheerful
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-04
Updated: 2013-02-04
Packaged: 2017-11-28 05:54:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/671035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deduce_me/pseuds/deduce_me
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>aka "A List of Reasons Why Loving a Statue is a Bad Idea".</p>
            </blockquote>





	what i stand for

**Author's Note:**

> this was going to be happy but then it wasn't

The first time was something different entirely. The two of them came together like the sea in a storm, clashing and pulling apart and meeting again, and the ragged breaths in his ear drove him on as he took Enjolras over a table. Open-mouthed kisses told him that surely this was what he wanted, what he’d always imagined. When they had both reached their crescendo, Grantaire had looked down at his leader, flushed all over with a mouth red and bitten, and Enjolras had looked back at him, eyes glassy like he was seeing Grantaire anew.

Grantaire walked back home that night on shaky legs and the slightest inkling of hope for the future. This hope was flattened slightly when Enjolras glared at him in the café the next morning and did not speak to him except to berate him for his drinking. Nothing had changed.

But something had. When the moon was high and full in the sky and the other men had gone home to their respective beds, Enjolras came at him again. The feeling of this figure brimming with warm energy and fiery passion molded to his own and biting at his neck was delicious, and his body reacted with enthusiasm. A voice in his mind shouted complaints that this was all wrong, that it was not the thing he sought, but he had learned to ignore such protestations ages ago. Grantaire surrendered easily and became no more than the mouth on his skin and the wall against his back for a while.

Afterwards, through hazy vision, he watched Enjolras dress and leave the building without a word.

The next day, he felt a little emptier, though he couldn’t imagine why. He gulped from bottles like a drowning fish gasping for water, eyes following the swing of a blond ponytail all the while. He watched the way Enjolras clapped his friends on the shoulders, how he laughed with them, how he leaned in to listen to their words, and felt a pang of jealousy from somewhere deep within him. _But I have seen a side of him that they have not_ , he reassured himself. _They are the unlucky ones_. He drained the bottle and moved on to another.

After about a week of their nightly coupling, Grantaire managed to talk himself into Enjolras’s bed. “For the sake of comfort,” Grantaire had insisted, but it was no more than selfishness on his part. He let Enjolras fuck him from behind, and with one hand steadying his hip and another tangled in his hair, Grantaire was surrounded in Enjolras, consumed by him, and it was enough to push his doubts and worries to the back of his mind. When they had finished, Enjolras collapsed on top of him, thoroughly exhausted, and was asleep within minutes. Grantaire felt a thrill go through him, stemming from the place on his shoulder where Enjolras’s head was resting, and he adjusted himself to pull the man into his arms. He fell asleep with little fuss for the first time in weeks.

When he woke, Enjolras had gone.

If Les Amis noticed a change in Grantaire, they did not comment, but it was there nonetheless. He spoke less, drank more, and when he bothered to show up at meetings it was with sunken eyes that stayed mostly glued to the floor. _What am I here for?_ he thought to himself, and of course the answer was Enjolras, but the way the revolutionary looked at him told him that he was not needed there, nor was he wanted, and that he was lucky to have a place in Enjolras’s bed as it is, and suddenly Grantaire was not sure of anything anymore.

Sitting at his desk one night, Grantaire remembered that he had been an artist once. The remnants of the last time he had tried sat inches away from him; several crumpled sheets of paper and a dull pencil snapped cleanly in half. He did not try again. Instead, he felt himself fill with a rage that he had long been without, since he had become numb, and against his better judgment, he grabbed the knife that he had been using to open letters and sliced through his pant leg, digging into his thigh. The pain was a relief and he may have kept going, but the sight of the fabric turning damp and red cleared his head enough to set the knife back on the desk, and as he bandaged the gash, he wondered if Enjolras had driven him insane.

Enjolras did not mention the bandages the next time they slept together, but he seemed to take care to avoid touching the sore spot when he spread Grantaire’s legs apart and Grantaire could almost pretend that Enjolras loved him.

Grantaire had quickly stopped liking kissing Enjolras. When he tried to press a chaste kiss to the other’s forehead, Enjolras would either push him away, shooting him a look, or yank him down and turn it into a biting fest. This would depend on Enjolras’s mood, and his mood would depend heavily on if they had had sex yet or not, for once that need was taken care of, Grantaire was invisible again. As they lay side by side, not touching- Enjolras had loudly proclaimed that he would not have that- it dawned on him how far he had sunken. He was less than a friend, lower than a whore; just some sort of toy for Enjolras to use, and the worst part was that he did not protest. The tears running down his face and into his mouth made him feel disgusting, and the way he clasped his mouth shut to avoid making sound was causing him to shake violently. Enjolras, who must have heard the choked sound of tears from the man beside him, did not move his head from the pillow.

 _Perhaps it is easier this way_ , Grantaire mused over his morning absinthe.

That night, a panicky feeling settled in Grantaire’s stomach as Enjolras reached to pull off his shirt, and he fled. He had left his shoes and his shirt was unbuttoned and it was pouring rain, and he ran and ran and ran until he did not know where he was and he could not tell if he was crying or if it was just the rain hitting his face. He settled against a building to sleep once his feet were raw and bleeding, and the image of the almost human look on his Apollo’s marble face when he had pulled away would not leave his mind.

He dreamed of inscriptions scratched into his skin and being crushed under the weight of a thousand statues. When he awoke, he was in his own bedroom, wearing fresh clothes, and his shoes were placed neatly at the foot of his bed.

Enjolras seemed to be happy pretending the night had never happened, and since Grantaire remembered very little of it, he complied. But when Enjolras made to leave the Musain one night, Grantaire caught him by the arm. “Enjolras,” he said, and let his eyes ask the question.

Enjolras stiffened at the vulnerability etched into Grantaire’s face. “Grantaire,” he replied, stone cold as always. “I do not love you.”

Grantaire felt something inside of him break, and he looked down with a forced nod. He had known. Yes, he had known, but hearing the words seemed like a sudden stab to the soul.

This time, Enjolras was the one to pull away.

The days before the revolution were the hardest. Enjolras had no time for him, not even in the way he had before, and refused to assign him a task, insisting that he would mess it up. Grantaire responded to this by drinking until he simply couldn’t keep his eyes open any longer. _Useless_ , Enjolras’s voice taunted inside his head as he faded out of consciousness behind a table.

He awoke to heavy footsteps and shouting, and was almost too afraid of what he would see to pull himself up off of the floor. The downstairs room was quiet, too quiet, but voices carried down from upstairs, so Grantaire went, breaths growing shallower at the sight of blood splattering the walls and floor.

And there was a firing squad, and there was Enjolras. It was always Enjolras.

He could have walked away, but his logical thinking had died the night before, drowned in the heroic amounts of alcohol he had consumed, and his feet carried him towards the condemned man instead. He offered his hand, and Enjolras gripped it gratefully. Grantaire could feel the man’s whole body shaking through the fingers he clutched, and realized with a start that this was the first time that Enjolras had needed him, and the only time he had been glad to have him. In a story, this would perhaps be the moment that Grantaire confessed his love, made Enjolras understand what he saw in him, but seeing as they were about to be gunned down, he held tight to Enjolras’s hand instead.

Warm blood hit his skin, and he barely felt the bullets pass through him and instead concentrated on the hand being so cruelly ripped away from him. As he fell at Enjolras’s feet; _the place where I have been all this time_ , he thought remorsefully; Grantaire sent up a final prayer for new beginnings, and when he woke there was an angel holding his hand.


End file.
